Yesterday, organizers of the ballot measure to make up to an ounce of marijuana legal in Detroit filed an appeal to overturn the city election commission’s outrageous decision to remove the question from the November ballot.

In June, the Coalition for a Safer Detroit submitted more than 6,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Earlier this week, in an affront to democratic ideals, the Detroit Election Commission voted 3-0 to remove the measure, saying they were following a recommendation from the city’s law department, which was concerned that removing criminal penalties for marijuana in Detroit would be pre-empted by state law.

"If you're on the cutting edge of social change, litigation is just a cost of doing business," Tim Beck, the petition’s organizer, told the Detroit Free Press.

In late 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderon announced a new government-backed military offensive against his country’s drug cartels, believing they could be defeated through sheer brute force. Four years later, more than 28,000 people have been killed, and the drug cartels are more powerful than ever, controlling vast manufacturing and distribution networks that have helped to bankroll kidnappings, extortion, human trafficking, and the corruption of an estimated 60 percent of U.S. border agents.

The majority of the cartels’ revenue – more than 60 percent, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy – comes from selling marijuana in the United States. Remember this.

Finally realizing the futility of the status quo, Calderon last week softened his position and said he was open to a debate about lifting prohibition as a way to combat the cartels and deprive them of their main source of income. (Officially, he remains an opponent of legalization.)

Then over the weekend, Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox (who as a former president is more politically flexible than his sitting successor) went even further, saying he firmly supports ending prohibition as a way to quell the violence. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked,” Fox wrote, explaining that he sees legalization “as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allowed cartels to earn huge profits."

This line of thinking is not new, obviously. Other Latin American nations are realizing prohibition doesn’t work, and former leaders of Brazil and Columbia, as well as former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, have been among those calling for its end.

Meanwhile, as the war rages on in Mexico, street shoot-outs have become commonplace, journalists fear their own safety so much that they don’t even report the violence, and school children are being trained to duck and cover in order to avoid the crossfire.

But with Mexico awash in blood and its leaders desperately looking for solutions, our officials have offered nothing but the same failed options. With one hand, the U.S.  gives the Mexican government millions of dollars to continue funding its horrifically unsuccessful war, and with the other, our officials continue to deny the irrefutable reality that prohibition has not worked and another approach is needed — one that will stop handing the cartels a virtual monopoly over such a lucrative trade.

When asked directly if legalizing and regulating marijuana in the United States could help weaken the cartels, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske was characteristically close-minded. “All the things they are involved in, all these incredibly horrible crimes, of which narcotics is only a part, would still go on,” he told The Dallas Morning News.

A spokesperson for the State Department was even more tight-lipped: “While the question of debating legalization is for Mexicans to decide, we don't think the legalization of drugs is the answer.”

A few things:

1. Kerlikowske’s own office, ONDCP, is the same one that reported cartels make (at least) 60 percent of their money from selling marijuana here in the U.S. So we can only assume the drug czar is being knowingly dishonest when he says taking marijuana out of the criminal market wouldn’t have some impact on the cartels. If those drug organizations were operating at 40 percent of their current wealth, that would mean 60 percent fewer corrupt officials, weapons purchases, cartel manpower, etc.
2. “The question of debating legalization” is not just “for Mexicans to decide.” Maybe the State Department hasn’t noticed voters in the largest U.S. state will have an opportunity to turn the page on marijuana prohibition just three months from now, and several other states are considering similar proposals.
3. For government officials, it doesn’t have to be a question of whether or not regulation, rather than prohibition is “the answer.” They could simply start off with the middle road Calderon took and say it’s time for a debate. That’s what Gov. Schwarzenegger did last year in California, and now the debate over Prop. 19 has helped launch a national dialogue about ways to reform our disastrous marijuana policies.

While the mainstream media, state governments, and a growing number of politicians and pundits are eagerly wading into the debate over America’s marijuana prohibition, top officials in Washington still refuse to accept that it’s not only already underway but is increasingly moving in a new direction.

Or as Sylvia Longmire, a drug cartel analyst and border security consultant, told AOL News:

It's difficult to comprehend how the U.S. government could acknowledge Calderon taking on the legalization debate, knowing full well that U.S. demand and consumption helps fuel the drug war, and not take at least baby steps towards engaging in a similar debate [in the U.S.].

Difficult is one way to put it. Infuriating might be another.

Once again, government officials are trying to suppress the will of voters when it comes to marijuana issues. The Detroit Free Press reports today that the Detroit Election Commission has voted 3-0 to reject a November ballot initiative that would have given city voters a chance to decide whether to allow adults to legally possess small amounts of marijuana.

Members of the commission said they were following a recommendation by the city's Law Department, which said the proposal was pre-empted by state law forbidding possession of the drug. Detroit attorney Matt Abel, a petition organizer, said: "This would have sent a message to the police that they should focus on more serious crime." Abel said he and others behind the proposal were considering filing an appeal in Wayne County Circuit Court.

In June, the Coalition for a Safer Detroit turned in more than 6,000 signatures to place the marijuana measure on the ballot.

Stay tuned for updates about the ongoing effort to ensure that Detroit voters have their say on November 2.

MPP legislative analyst Dan Riffle discusses proposed regulations for a medical marijuana law in Washington, D.C. on NewsChannel 8.

Bruce Fein served as a high-ranking Justice Department official during the Reagan administration, and has since gone on to work for conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Now, as a member of the “Just Say Now” advisory board, he’s joined the growing number of conservatives who are calling for a legal and regulated marijuana market.

Watch below:

Progressive political blog FireDogLake launched its online marijuana legalization campaign yesterday. Complete with a website and an advisory board that includes former law enforcement officers, physicians, and activists, the campaign—called “Just Say Now”—is designed as a “transpartisan” nexus of sorts for the growing nationwide movement to end marijuana prohibition.

Partnering with FDL for the campaign is Students For Sensible Drug Policy, which recently made an excellent decision by naming our former colleague Aaron Houston as its new executive director. Though we miss Aaron’s presence in the office, his new position ensures that he’ll continue to play a leading role in combating the destructive policies of marijuana prohibition.

For more, check out this clip of FireDogLake founder and publisher Jane Hamsher announcing the “Just Say Now” campaign on CNN.

More than 2,000 people in Colorado applied for licenses to run state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries, growing facilities or related businesses before this weekend’s application deadline, according to state officials. In total, the state made $7.34 million from application fees alone.

More than 700 applied specifically for dispensary licenses, far exceeding the number expected by state officials, who estimated that only half of the state’s roughly 1,100 pre-existing dispensaries would apply for licenses. State officials will now conduct thorough background checks on applicants before awarding licenses, which are expected to generate additional millions in annual revenue for Colorado.

“This outpouring of applications is another sign of how willing and eager marijuana business owners are to be taxed, regulated, and given equal treatment to other legitimate establishments,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, in a press release. “By sensibly regulating its medical marijuana industry, Colorado stands to gain untold millions in new revenue while at the same time providing legal clarity and rational oversight to what may soon be the largest regulated marijuana market in the world.”

In June, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (D) signed legislation designed to regulate the state’s medical marijuana industry through a system of local and state licenses. A state-licensed medical marijuana program is up and running in New Mexico, and similar programs will soon be operational in Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. – but the number of sanctioned dispensaries to be allowed in each of those states is fewer than 10. Colorado’s law will authorize hundreds, and potentially more if future demand increases.

A Rasmussen telephone poll released May 15 showed that there is also plurality support among Colorado voters for further expanding the state’s marijuana laws. Forty-nine percent of likely voters said they support taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, with an additional 13 percent still undecided.

Exciting developments in the movement to end marijuana prohibition keep flooding my inbox. Here’s just a sampling from over the weekend:

Citing a new survey, Ryan Grim gives more credence to the idea that marijuana ballot initiatives could help Democrats drive “surge voters” to the polls in 2012. (Something I’ve written about a time or two.)

A survey making the rounds among strategists, which has yet to be made public, indicates that pot could be just the enticement many of these voters need: Surge voters, single women under 40 and Hispanics all told America Votes pollsters that if a legalization measure were on the Colorado ballot, they'd be more likely to come out to vote. Forty-five percent of surge voters and 47 percent of single women said they'd be more interested in voting if the question was on the ballot. Most of these were energetic, with 36 and 30 percent, respectively, saying they'd be "much more interested" in coming out to vote. Roughly half said it would make no difference. For Latinos, 32 percent said they'd be "much more interested" in voting and another 12 percent said they'd be somewhat more attracted to the idea of trudging to the polls.

Surge voters said they would support the measure by a margin of 63-35. Young single women would back it 68-31.

In Oregon, the Court of Appeals has ruled that a parent who tests positive for marijuana cannot lose custody of their children without evidence that his or her marijuana use resulted in child endangerment.

The state had argued that the mother's marijuana use "presented a reasonable likelihood of harm to her two children."

But the appeals court agreed with the mother's argument that the state failed to provide any evidence connecting her behavior with risk to the children. […]

[Department of Human Services] workers found that the home was clean, the children had appropriate food to eat and they appeared "happy and healthy," the appeals court wrote in its decision. A DHS worker also had testified that the mother "appears to have appropriate parenting skills."

[…] The mother admitted using the drug at a party a week or two earlier but said she did not use it frequently and never used it around the children. A test taken a few weeks later came back negative for marijuana and other drugs.

And in an interview with The New York Times, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) predicts that a bill he has sponsored to remove federal penalties for the personal use of marijuana could pass within five years.

For all your love of financial regulation, you’ve joined with the libertarian Republican Ron Paul to write bills that would shrink government. Do you think your bill to legalize marijuana will ever pass? Yes, in the next five years.

Will that expand the tax base? As a nation, do you think we could smoke our way to solvency? I want to be clear; that’s not my major motivation. My major motivation is personal freedom. When we outlaw marijuana or online gambling, all you do is create more criminals and deprive us of revenue.

A website set up by Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire’s office asked citizens to vote on different ideas to help plug the state’s $3 billion budget gap. The most popular—out of more than 1,700 submitted ideas—was legalizing and taxing marijuana. (Not the first time we’ve seen such a result in an online forum.)

So what does the governor think about ending the state’s prohibition on marijuana?

“It’s a legitimate idea,” said her spokesperson, Karina Shagren. “But we’d have to see how the federal government would respond.”

Though it’s not a ringing endorsement, this response is quite encouraging for a governor whose state this year considered both a legislative bill and a ballot initiative that would have made marijuana legal for adults.

The initiative didn’t gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but with polls showing more than half of Washington voters supporting an end to marijuana prohibition, it’s all but certain local organizers will try again in upcoming years.

Even more promising, this year the initiative received an official endorsement from the Washington state Democratic Party. And Gov. Gregorie just happens to be a Democrat.

Artist, designer, and animator Haik Hoisington just sent along his most recent animation, and I consider it a must-watch for marijuana policy reform activists. "The Flower" does an amazing job of contrasting a society that regulates (and taxes) a flower with one that chooses the path of prohibition.